Alzheimer’s is on a collision course to become one of the largest economic threats facing the United States.

Without intervention, cases are projected to double to nearly 14 million by 2060. By 2034, older Americans are projected to outnumber children for the first time in our history. The fiscal implications — for Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and the workforce — are staggering.

Meanwhile, the health care system perpetuates late-stage crisis care and dismisses cognitive problems as normal aging. Alzheimer’s interventions work best when instituted early, so late diagnosis limits patient options and drives costs. When Alzheimer’s is identified only after patients can no longer work or live independently, the burden shifts rapidly to long-term care and unpaid family caregiving — two of the most expensive outcomes in the health care system.

American families are already absorbing the majority of the financial burden from Alzheimer’s disease. Households caring for loved ones with Alzheimer’s lose an estimated $8 billion in annual earnings and shoulder roughly 70% of the more than $400,000 lifetime cost of care through unpaid caregiving and out-of-pocket expenses. Taxpayers cover the rest, with Medicare and Medicaid spending a combined nearly $250 billion each year on Alzheimer’s-related care.

Early detection could help curb both the human and financial sides of the Alzheimer’s crisis.

Consider Dr. Brent Beasley’s experience. A former internal medicine physician, Beasley lost his job before learning he had early-onset Alzheimer’s. Despite medical training and access to care, it took him a full year to receive a diagnosis. Imagine how much longer diagnosis takes for average Americans without knowledge of how to navigate the health care system. Once diagnosed early enough to act, his care team had options. A new treatment allowed him to remain cognitively engaged, independent, and functional.

Treatment plans will not be the same for every patient. Some may opt for simple interventions that can extend healthy, meaningful years.

Research shows that up to 40% of dementias are preventable or delayable when caught early through lifestyle interventions such as physical activity, sleep, and social engagement. Walking 7,000 steps a day has been shown to delay cognitive decline by an average of seven years.

Seven years of preserved independence translates into billions in avoided long-term care costs and millions of additional productive years.

Patients will not have time to institute these changes if Alzheimer’s is not detected early enough to act. And entitlement programs will continue to buckle under the weight of supporting elderly Americans who have left the workforce prematurely.

Raising individual healthy life expectancy by only one year would be worth about $566,000 per person, and simple policy fixes to incentivize early detection would help make that future a reality.

First, early cognitive detection must become a routine responsibility of primary care, not a late-stage referral to specialists. Alzheimer’s should be identified where patients already receive care.

Second, clinicians must have access to modern diagnostic tools, including blood-based biomarkers, that can identify disease before irreversible damage occurs. Early diagnosis is the gateway to every cost-saving intervention that follows.

Finally, Medicare policy must align with early detection. Updating the Annual Wellness Visit to require the use of a validated cognitive screening tool — rather than an informal conversation — would be an administrative change, not a legislative overhaul. But its impact would be profound: earlier diagnosis, delayed institutionalization, lower long-term costs, and more Americans staying independent and productive longer.

From a human perspective, early diagnosis expands choice. From a fiscal perspective, it prevents avoidable costs. 80% of voters argue prevention and early detection of Alzheimer’s can save taxpayers and Medicare programs billions of dollars. It’s time for policymakers to listen and act.

Charles Sauer is the president of the Market Institute and the author of “Profit Motive” Sauer can be reached at charles@marketinstitute.org.

Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate